


wild young hearts;

by maidenstar



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Espionage, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-13 15:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3386915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maidenstar/pseuds/maidenstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“In the end, it takes them less than 24 hours to double-cross their bosses, steal a car, and ride off into the sunset like they’re something out of a nineties crime movie.”</i> </p><p>Angie Martinelli is sent by the spy ring Leviathan to take out Peggy Carter.<br/>Peggy has a mission of her own, fresh from the SSR itself. Kill Angie Martinelli.<br/>Things could not go <i>less</i> to plan.</p><p> <span class="small">[Modern day spy/‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’-type AU]</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	wild young hearts;

In the end, it takes them less than 24 hours to double-cross their bosses, steal a car, and ride off into the sunset like they’re something out of a nineties crime movie.

It’s reckless, wild behaviour and they know they shouldn’t do it. But they do it anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Her name’s Peggy Carter, though she might be going under an alias of course.”

“ _Of course_.” She takes the picture they slide across the desk, studying it for a moment and biting at her lip.

It wasn’t like this was her first job.

They’re treating her like a rookie though, so she guesses they must be worried. From the picture – a grainy CCTV image and _really_ , was this the best Leviathan could do? – this Peggy Carter didn’t look like too much of a threat, but she knew by now never to underestimate anyone.

It wasn’t exactly as though she looked all that dangerous herself. Not on the first glance. Maybe not even on the second.

“Get me an address and I can have the job done by m– ”

“ _No._ ” One sharp syllable, The Boss’s voice a low, dangerous hiss in the dim light of the office. “We’re playing the long game on this one – undercover, the whole nine yards. She works for the SSR. I want information, all the information you can extract, so that we can take them down. Once and for all.” Every sentence is drawn out for far too long, and she has to suppress an eyeroll at her superiors’ flare for the dramatic.

A thick manila file follows the tracks of the photograph across the table, and she takes it, resisting the urge to leaf through it there and then.

“Everything you need is in there. Address, schedules, telephone numbers, psychoanalysis, fighting styles. I trust we can leave this in your… _capable_ hands?”

It’s almost as if they’re mocking her somehow, and she feels her temper rise slightly.

“ _Of course_. You want me to go undercover. Befriend her. Ask questions.” She resists adding ‘ _the usual stuff_ ’ onto the end of the sentence because, well, when did this kind of stuff become so _boring_ , so predictable?

“Befriend, deceive, _seduce_. We don’t care, just get the information before making the kill.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

(Of course she gets the target who spends half her time at some twee tourist trap diner that looks like it’s come straight out of post-war America. A diner with a uniform that makes her look like she got stuck in a time warp. _Of course she does_.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

There was a time when a young Angie Martinelli had dreamed of becoming an actress. It was all in the storytelling. As a child, she was captivated by the idea that she could invent a story or a character in her head, and then bring it to life a moment later. Just like that.

She had never once cared whether it was on stage or on screen. She just wanted to act.

As she adjusts the cap on her head for what felt like the thirtieth time that day, she can’t help but acknowledge that she really should have been more careful with what she wished for.

It wasn’t the first time she’d done undercover work and had this realisation, but it was certainly her undercover work with the ugliest uniform. 

She quickly develops a whole new level of appreciation for the people who work full time in tourist hotspots like this. It wasn’t that she’d ever taken them for granted before, but the customers here were rude. Like, rude rude. Rude and slimy and gross. As in, one guy even tried to smack her on the ass at lunch. That kind of slimy.

Plus, by the end of her first shift, she counts about ten bucks in tips, give or take. What the hell was she supposed to do with ten bucks? Set up a college fund for her (likely non-existent) future kid? She’s halfway angry about the customers’ lack of generosity before she realises that it doesn’t actually have any bearing on herself.

It doesn’t mean she has to like it for the other waitresses though, not even as she covertly drops every bit of extra money she’d made into the communal jar on the counter. She highly doubts that she’ll be there by the end of the month when they share it all out.

However, as she heads gloomily back to the apartment she’s calling ‘home’ for the next few weeks, she acknowledges that it hasn’t been a completely fruitless first day. Peggy Carter hadn’t made an appearance, but Angie had learnt that it wasn’t so strange of Carter to frequent a place like the L&L Automat at all, as she’d first thought. The customers were all either tourists with no interest in anyone but themselves, or commuters in such a hurry they barely even noticed Angie when she served them their coffee and eggs.  

Carter could do what she liked there without being noticed by anyone, and only a block away from the SSR’s headquarters (assuming Leviathan’s suspicions were correct).

It was clever really, and, target or not, Angie has a lot of admiration and respect for a clever girl, out to make it in the world of espionage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(It’s another three days before Angie sees Peggy Carter in the flesh, and she thinks that Leviathan should definitely have provided a better picture, so that she was prepared.

Even objectively, Carter is perhaps one of the most beautiful women Angie has ever seen. She almost literally exudes class and poise, from the way she carries herself to the soft timbre of her voice, sweetened with an accent that’s honey-smooth. Her clothes always seem high-class, often rather period in style, and Carter wears them with a sway to her hips and a confident walk. 

A few days later, Angie catches sight of Carter’s lipstick when she opens her bag to settle her bill. It’s an expensive brand, though Angie could have guessed that from the off. The information adds a certain something to the sight of Peggy Carter’s smile though, bright red lips against the flash of white teeth. For the first time, Angie thinks they might be wolf’s teeth – capable of devouring.)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Your target’s name is Angie Martinelli and it seems that’s the alias she’s using.” There’s a photo ready and waiting on the desk.

The girl in the picture is dressed in the Automat’s uniform. She’s pretty; sweet-looking, even. But Peggy knows all too well that roses tend to have thorns.

“It seems that having you spend your time at the diner has paid off,” Chief Dooley observes, though Peggy thinks that’s pretty easy for him to say. The L&L is loud, dirty, and serves coffee that’s almost impressively disappointing. “I _knew_ Leviathan was watching us.”

He says this triumphantly, as though it was he – and not Peggy herself – who had done most of the ground work on the discovering how much intel Leviathan had gathered on the SSR.

“And you’re certain she’s their operative?” Peggy doesn’t doubt Martinelli’s ability per se, but she was a little less certain about her colleagues’ investigation work sometimes.

“Positive. Sousa ran the background earlier today,” Dooley responds, his voice rising in a challenge, as though daring Peggy to question the matter further. When she doesn’t take the bait, he goes on. “They’ve sent her in, probably to tail you and possibly to get information from you. You need to prepare some false papers, let her see them. Set a trap, Carter. Okay?”

There’s a moment in which Peggy’s heart jumps slightly. “You’re giving me the case sir?”

Dooley _never_ gave her jobs that didn’t involve running back-end, he didn’t think her capable enough. The feminist movement and equal rights legislation had totally passed him by, apparently.

“We have to assume she knows who you are and is expecting you. Besides, none of my boys are gonna jump at the chance to take down a lady.”  

 _Of course_. He wants her on the job because Martinelli is a woman. How devastatingly predictable of him. Setting her jaw, she attempts to move past this as seamlessly as she can manage.

“‘Take down’, sir? Aren’t we bringing her in?”

“Leviathan won’t have any interest in a bribe or a bargain, they never do, so we’re going to work on taking out their best agents. Get what information you can, and finish the job Carter.” His voice is hard as steel, but Peggy’s more than used to this intimidation tactic. “Can I trust you to do this? Because if I can’t, Thompson needs a case.”

Even if she wasn’t certain beforehand, she’s well aware Dooley knows this would be enough to get her on board. 

“You can trust me.”

“Are you sure because if y–”

“ _Yes_ sir. I’m sure.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first time, Peggy sits at the counter rather than in her usual booth. She wants to make the visit a flying one, just long enough that she can learn a little about Agent Martinelli.

Angie’s sure not to rush over when she sees Peggy enter, but waits until it looks as though the other waitress is about to retreat from her position collecting plates at a recently-vacated table. Eventually, Angie sets down her cloth and calls across the diner.

“Don’t worry Di, I’ll take this!”

Peggy likes that. It’s a nice touch.

Angie takes care to fire up her best, most dazzling waitress smile. She overdoes the whole thing just a little bit, just enough to seem like an overeager service worker.

“What can I get you hon?”

Peggy Carter is charming, and unfailingly polite.  She smiles back, giving a genuine, appreciative grin as she orders.

“Just a coffee please, milk but no sugar.”

“Sure thing.” Angie sets to work, and doesn’t say anything more than a few paltry comments about the weather.

Peggy doesn’t stay more than half an hour, and she tips generously. She’s the only customer that day who does.  

Angie thinks that she rather respects that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After about a week, it gets easier to start interacting. Peggy is now enough of a regular that she graces Angie with an extra smile when she sees her, and Angie finally starts asking if she wants “the usual”.

Generally, Peggy visits the diner most evenings. Angie can only assume that she’s out on mission work on the nights she doesn’t show, but she hasn’t received a directive to tail her, so she can’t be certain.

In her guise as waitress, she brings it up just enough to seem natural, and the responses she receives are as vague as she would expect.

“Didn’t see you last night, English. Hot date with _some_ _guy_?” Angie isn’t quite sure how the nickname came about, only that it slipped into a sentence one night and stuck pretty fast. It worked well for her, a nice stepping stone before complete familiarity, but she couldn’t deny that it had been accidental.

Peggy always laughs when Angie asks this question, laughs like it’s an absurd idea.

“Not at all, I was much more boring than that.” She always replies that she’d worked late, lamenting the piles of paperwork at ‘the office’, or that she’d simply had an early night.

She occasionally brings files and papers to the diner, and Angie attempts to read them over Peggy’s shoulder as she walks by. They definitely seem to originate from the SSR but, by the end of the first two weeks, Angie hasn’t managed to get any information that’s worth reporting back to her superiors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“No late night at the office today? That must be nice.” 

“It certainly is. I don’t think I could stand more time with my co-workers today.”

Angie hums sympathetically, sliding Peggy’s coffee over without even asking. She accepts it with a grateful nod.

“You don’t like them?”

“They actually relegated me to lunch orders today.”

Angie snorts, “ _lunch orders?_ You gotta be kidding Peggy.”

“I wish I was.”

“ _Jeez…”_

Angie cracks a joke, and Peggy laughs. Genuinely. For just a moment – as she quips back – she’s simply being herself and completely forgets about undercover at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Peggy walks into work the next morning, Dooley calls her into his office.

“You got anything good for me Carter?” No preamble, no ‘have a seat’, it’s exactly how she’s come to expect to be spoken to by her bosses and co-workers.

She wonders briefly what job satisfaction must feel like, before casting her mind back to the night before.

It had been a quiet night in the diner, and at one point she’d been the only customer there. She’d asked Angie if she should leave, but Angie had said she couldn’t close the diner early, so instead they turned the radio up and made fun of the late-night DJ patter.

Peggy had actually enjoyed herself. It didn’t say great things about the SSR that she’d had a better time speaking with a woman who might try and kill her at any moment than she ever did speaking to anyone at work. Except maybe Sousa. At least he tried to be nice to her.

But Dooley didn’t need to know any of that.

“Well I know for sure now that she’s been sent to tail me,” she says thoughtfully and Dooley raises an eyebrow in question. “She slipped up. Called me Peggy. I’ve never introduced myself, and she couldn’t know my name from anyone else in the diner.”

“You ever accidentally flash her your ID? Pay on card?”

Peggy bites back a sarcastic retort. It’s not as though she’s never been on a mission before.

“No, to either. And even then it would be a bit strange of her to just refer to me like that.”

Dooley nods his head, tells her to be quicker in developing a plan, and sends her on her way.

As she sits back down at her desk, Peggy feels strange. She feels oddly guilty, as though somehow, by talking to Dooley, she’s been part of a betrayal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You like fashion magazines, English?” As she cleans out the booth behind Peggy’s, Angie catches sight of a double-page spread about a posh-looking catwalk event in some country in Europe.

“Not more than that,” Peggy responds, still facing away from Angie. “But it passes the time.”

“So you never fancied being a model huh?” she asks with a quick laugh. She’s only really half-joking though, because she _knows_ that’s not the sort of thing that would interest someone like Carter, but at the same time Angie finds herself thinking that Peggy would make an excellent model. She certainly has the looks.

Angie makes her way over to Carter’s booth, standing over her slightly with her hand resting on her hip.

“Oh no, I’d make a horrible model,” Peggy answers firmly, with a delicate, dismissive wave of her hand.

“Not with legs like yours.” The words are out her mouth before Angie can stop herself and, evidently as surprised as Angie feels, Peggy looks up at her through her eyelashes.

She gives a small, coy smile but doesn’t respond further. Quickly, she flicks ahead in the magazine and lands on the advice column page. Suddenly desperate for a way to diffuse the mood that settles between them, Angie all but dives into the seat opposite Peggy. She points to the magazine.

“Come on, quickly while the diner’s quiet. Find me the stupidest problem on that page. You’ve got until the count of ten, okay? Ready?”

“Ready.”

“And…go!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(“I didn’t send you to New York to make friends, Martinelli, I sent you there to get information and to make a hit.”

She’s at home, slouched down on her sofa, feet out on the coffee table as she waits for the nail varnish on her toes to dry; a stance which unintentionally reflects her lack of enthusiasm for yet another chastisement from Leviathan.

“Well like I told you a few days ago, she’s gonna get suspicious if I press too hard. If you don’t want the information anymore, I’ll proceed to the next stage.”

For a moment, there’s silence as her boss thinks.

“No, not yet. But get us something from the paperwork she brings in. _And soon_.” He doesn’t bother waiting for a response, just hangs up.

Glumly, Angie drops her cell phone onto the couch beside her. It lands on the cushion with a tiny _thmp_.

At least if she concentrates hard enough on painting her fingernails, Angie can almost ignore the relief she feels at being told that she doesn’t have to kill Peggy Carter. Not yet, at any rate.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time they’ve been on their respective jobs for almost a month, they’re both still alive. Which is probably some kind of miracle.

However, they’ve also both started to lose track of some things. Important things, probably.

For example, Peggy can’t remember when she started genuinely looking forward to heading to the diner at the end of the day.

Angie forgets when she stops having to fake a smile when she sees Peggy walk through the door. Smiling at Peggy Carter just becomes a natural process, a little like breathing.

When Angie asks about Peggy’s day, she really cares. And when it’s been a bad one, the sympathy Angie offers is real.

One time, she even catches Peggy chastising a regular customer who’s always unspeakably rude to Angie. Across the room, she’s careful not let Peggy realise that she knows.

Mostly, neither of them knows when they start unconsciously flirting with the other. But when they do it, they’re not pretending to be someone they’re not.

It’s real. And that scares them both more than they can say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(“I like that shirt, Peggy.” It _is_ a pretty shirt, but mostly Angie’s just looking for an excuse to lean across the counter, closer to Peggy. She rubs the shirt collar between her fingers, letting her hand ghost across the silk-soft skin of Peggy’s throat.

She feels Peggy’s tiny, sharp inhalation at the contact, but she doesn’t pull away.

Peggy doesn’t want her to.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually, they both have to concede that they’re in too deep. They won’t admit it to anyone but themselves, but it quickly becomes undeniable. And it also becomes problematic.

Angie rarely ever _wants_ to kill anyone. But she really, really doesn’t want to kill Peggy Carter. She doesn’t even think she is capable of it anymore.

Peggy starts finding excuses not to tell Dooley little things about Angie, makes sure he doesn’t know about any weaknesses or any occasional slip up. It should burn her to do it, especially after she’s worked so hard to be taken seriously at the SSR. But in truth, she thinks nothing at all of the deception. 

They come to separate realisations that the word for what they’re doing is sabotage. They both quickly realise that they don’t care.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(“So tell me English, what exactly do you look for in a guy?”

“You know, that question makes it sound like men are my only option.”

Angie’s heart leaps. It actually leaps, like a normal person’s would. A person who _isn’t_ going to have to kill the woman they’re flirting with at some point in the near future 

“So I’m guessing they’re not the only option for you?”

“Far from it.” There’s a significant pause before Peggy goes on, mocking Angie, “what do _you_ look for in men?”

“Well Peg, I kinda like mine to be female.”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Angie was wrong. She _is_ stationed at the diner long enough to see the communal tip jar split, but she somehow manages to dodge taking any of the money. She’s getting paid twice over for this job and isn’t about to take anyone else’s money from them.

Especially not when the thought of what she’s going to have to do to her earn money from Leviathan makes her sick to her stomach. They were putting more and more heat on her to get results. She’d so far passed on enough information to keep them happy, but no more than that.

She hates doing it, hates the feeling that she’s betraying a secret when she talks about her conversations with Peggy. Hates reporting back on the documents she leafs through when Peggy goes to the bathroom.

Heavy, sticky guilt pools in her stomach every time she gives her bosses even the smallest piece of information, and she hates every damn part of it.

Angie has a hunch that the intel she’s gathered so far has been wilfully given up. She thinks, deep down, that Peggy knows who she is, that maybe they’ve been playing the same game all along. But this makes her even less keen to ask questions about what Peggy does, because if Peggy _is_ on to her then things will change between them. Angie doesn’t think she could stand that, and she isn’t about to risk shattering Peggy’s trust in her by asking loaded questions. Questions with answers she’s not even remotely interested in.

The truth is, she’s not really working for Leviathan anymore. She’s working for herself. She doesn’t care if The Boss thinks Peggy Carter is a threat, she doesn’t care about some long-standing rivalry between her bosses and the guys over at the SSR. She doesn’t care about any of it anymore, because she’s been stuck in a game of cat and mouse with Leviathan for so long that she’s forgotten that she wants things too.

Things that don’t involve being a hired gun, things that don’t involve death and destruction. She wants more than that.

But mostly, she just wants Peggy Carter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(A few days later, she discovers that Peggy Carter wants her too.

She’s so happy she thinks she might float away, like a balloon that hasn’t been tied down properly.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Angie’s topping up the change in the till when, somehow, she feels Peggy’s gaze on her. Angie glances over, takes in red lips and white teeth, but they no longer make her think of wolves.

Or maybe Angie just isn’t scared of being devoured anymore. She supposes that if you run with wolves long enough, you’ll learn how to howl.

She goes over, not really out of choice but through some inexplicable, impossible magnetic pull she feels towards Peggy.

“How’s your food?” she asks, her grin far too wide. “As disappointing as ever?” Angie’s tried the food here once or twice, when she’s pulled a double shift or hasn’t had time to eat at home. It’s not terrible, but it was far from satisfying either.

“Something like that,” Peggy agrees pleasantly, sweeping her gaze over what’s left of her meal on the plate.

“Well if you don’t like the food, why _ever_ do you come here English?” Angie asks playfully, feigning innocence.

Peggy bites at her cheek and pretends to think. “You know, I don’t know. It is pretty noisy and dirty in here, but I suppose I do rather like the routine. Plus it’s nice and convenient.”

Angie pouts, “what and that’s it? Nothing else?”

Slowly, Peggy grins in a way that’s nothing short of maddening. “I suppose the company’s pretty enjoyable too.”

“That’s more like it.”

Smiling like fools, they hold each other’s gaze for a moment. Angie resists the urge to physically shake her head at herself, at the two of them really. Dancing around the point like this was completely illogical, it was stupid.

Almost as stupid as the alternative. And Angie Martinelli never did things by halves. If she was going to be an idiot, she might as well go the whole way with it.

“You know,” Angie says thoughtfully, “I’ve started taking my breaks outside, round the back. To get away from all that noise and mess you seem to hate.”

Peggy catches on to her tone instantly, though Angie hadn’t expected any less from her. Peggy props her chin up on her hand, looking up at Angie.

“How _convenient_ for you.”

“I just thought you’d like to know. In case you ever feel like an _escape_.” She raises an eyebrow significantly and turns to walk away, resisting the urge to look back at Peggy too soon.

Peggy isn’t sure why she stands and makes as if to follow. It’s not as though she doesn’t know that Angie is an enemy operative. Common sense dictates that this is going to be a trap, and that Angie is leading her outside to kill her, but Peggy is rather bored with common sense these days.

Besides, her gut instinct tells her to expect something else entirely, and her instinct has never lead her astray before.

Angie eventually throws a pointed look over her shoulder, expression laced with suggestion before disappearing through a set of swinging doors, and Peggy throws caution to the wind. She’s more than capable of defending herself if she needs to.

They burst out the back door together a moment later, the night air just the wrong side of cool on Peggy’s bare arms. She scarcely has a moment to adjust, however, before Angie’s arms snake around her neck, and she leans into Peggy, lips searching.

Peggy meets her without hesitation.

They make out against the back wall of the diner furiously, like teenagers, their hands skimming over each other’s bodies greedily, like women living on borrowed time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(“I can assure you I’m not stalling. She’s starting to trust me, I think she’s decided I’m not a threat. It’s only a matter of time before I find something.”

“You’re on very thin ice Martinelli. I’m going to be sending an agent by soon, a _proper_ agent. If anything looks amiss – well...you know the drill.”

Her hand drifts of its own volition to a scar on her bicep. She knew the drill all too well by now.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They find themselves alone in the diner together, well after hours.

Angie had locked the doors and dimmed the lights ages ago, but they’re both still there, swigging from a bottle of peach Schnapps.

For reasons unbeknown to both of them, they’re sat on the floor with their backs against the counter, which is probably dangerously unsanitary.

Angie’s had enough to drink that she’s sitting heavily against Peggy, and so Peggy takes her chance to raise a question that’s been bothering her for some time.

“Is this real?”

Angie quirks an eyebrow playfully. “You trying to tell me something?” she teases, but it’s clear she knows Peggy isn’t proclaiming a feeling of lucky incredulity.

“You know what I mean.”

Angie gives her a long, piercing look. It’s perhaps the closest Peggy’s come to admitting she knows the truth about Angie. She still won’t say the words however, so Angie can’t really be certain. Her heart feels heavy though, and she thinks that probably says it all.

“This is me.” Angie whispers the words, and it’s all she says, because it’s all she can muster.

“This is me too.”

“Good.”

“But you know this is impossible, right? You know it can’t last?”

Angie’s expression is painfully, _prettily_ , sad.

“I know. So it looks like I should probably enjoy it while I can, English.”

Her mouth comes down on Peggy’s, and they both taste strongly of peaches, and rhubarb pie.

After a moment their cheeks start to feel wet.

It doesn’t matter which one of them is crying, not really.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“What do you _mean_ you’ve had a plan ready to go for weeks? What were you waiting for?” Dooley is furious, shouting so loudly there’s no way Thompson and Krzeminski aren’t listening in.

“Well sir I knew you’d want me to wait for your instruction,” Peggy does her best sweet, simpering tone and for a moment she genuinely considers the possibility that Dooley might hit her for it.

As it is, he clenches and unclenches his fists no less than four times before speaking again. His voice is much calmer when he resumes, but it’s clearly costing him a lot.

“Lay the trap Carter. That woman’s taken out at least six of our best agents – or allies – in the last four months. I want her out of the game by the end of the week.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the plan quickly looks as though it’s going to be useless, because for the next few days, Angie doesn’t turn up for work.

Dooley takes great pleasure in assuring Peggy that if she’s let this opportunity to get closer to Leviathan pass her by, then she can clear out her desk on Friday and never come back.

When Angie eventually reappears, it’s clear something has changed and Peggy doesn’t have to think too long or hard to work out what it is.

Angie looks tired, worn out, and the dark circles under her eyes look like bruises. When she bends down to clean the shelves beneath the counter, Peggy catches sight of _real_ bruising – angry patches of purple and blue and red – all over Angie's collarbone.

She studiously avoids Peggy all night, won’t even look at her, but Peggy understands. Distance is the only thing that’s going to make their orders a little easier. 

Peggy acts that night, because she has a feeling that if she leaves it any longer, then Leviathan was going to come for both of them. Either that, or Dooley would give the case to someone else, and it would be out of Peggy’s hands entirely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(“There were papers on her table. Apparently one of our suppliers has agreed to meet them for talks.”

“When’s the meeting?”

“Tomorrow morning, early hours.”

There’s a pause while her boss considers the information he’s been given.

“It’s a trap, they’re going to expect us to turn up, Carter’s going to be waiting for us, and then she’s going to call in back-up.”

“Well I can scope out the building tonight. If we can gain an element of surprise, we’ll have enough agents there to turn the tables on them.” _And perhaps Peggy will get lost in the melee._

“ _Well_ …we’ll have one agent.”  

It takes Angie an embarrassingly long time to work out what she’s being told.

“You’re sending me in alone? But half the SSR could be there.”

“If you wanted to be part of a team, you should have acted it like it earlier.”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The building Peggy chooses is an old, abandoned high-rise parking lot, on the outskirts of the city.

It’s a tactical choice. The building is close to condemned, some of the floors are dangerously unstable, and no one ever goes there. It’s unlikely any civilians will be caught in any crossfire. Better still, there’s no power running to the place, so there’s no CCTV cameras. Whatever happens, there’s going to be little recorded evidence of it.

Dooley’s suspicious that Leviathan will call their bluff, which has been Peggy’s intention the whole time. He’s sending Peggy in alone, with instructions to call for back up if there’s a heavy Leviathan presence. With any luck she’ll get there, and Angie will be nowhere to be found.

Peggy knows that Angie saw the papers, because she watched her leafing through them, but still she hopes that the night will come to nothing. 

She leaves her car in the shadows of the alley next to the high-rise, shrugging on her tac gear and heading for the second storey. The papers she’d prepared had intimated that this would be the meeting point. She crouches in wait, gun in hand, behind an abandoned car for almost two hours. The meeting time comes and goes, with no sound or movement anywhere close by. For a while, she thinks that she might be home and dry.

Eventually, she radios in to her handler.

“Dooley was right, there’s no one here. I’m going to head out.”

“Be careful of ambush on the way out Carter.”

Shaking her head to herself, she keeps silent. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t thought of that.

She’s halfway to the exit when a noise behind her causes her to freeze. She ducks behind a concrete pillar, pistol prone and ready, but it comes to nothing, and she thinks it may have been a rat or a bird scrabbling through the rubble.

She turns and almost walks into a figure standing in wait behind her, gun raised.

The high-rise is unlit save for a few meagre chinks of moonlight, but she would have recognised Angie even without them.

“Don’t move any further.” She’s close enough that Peggy can see her jaw is set tight, so tight it looks painful, but even then her voice wavers slightly.

“Angie – ” she goes to reach out, but Angie only stiffens, gripping at her weapon with both hands.

“I said don’t move. Drop the gun.”

Peggy obliges, the pistol making an ugly clattering sound that echoes across the entire space.

Angie’s breath is coming far too swiftly, and Peggy can see it forming tiny clouds in the cold air. 

“Angie. You don’t have to do this. You know that right?”

Angie’s eyes are shining in the darkness. “I don’t have a choice.”

In the end, Angie almost hadn’t gone. She isn’t sure she can kill Peggy, even as she holds her, trapped with her back against a pillar. But Leviathan had made it clear that it was either Peggy or Angie, and Angie thinks that the dilemma sounds about right for someone with her luck.

Either she kills a woman she might well be in love with, or she’s a dead woman walking.

In the end Angie had gone because if she couldn’t bring herself to kill Peggy, she’d still rather die at Peggy’s hand than at Leviathan’s.

Angie can tell from Peggy’s face that she doesn’t want to hurt her, but it heartens Angie to see a spark in Peggy’s eyes,  something that says that she isn’t about to go down willingly.

In a swift motion, Peggy feints forward, hands tight around Angie’s wrists, forcing the gun away. It discharges, a bullet flying completely astray into the darkness. Reversing their positions and crashing Angie’s arms against the pillar, Peggy forces Angie to drop the gun.

Breathlessly, she kicks it away into the shadows. Now, neither of them are armed.

After that, all is chaos.

They both fall back on past training, back to pure survival instinct, their bodies working of their own accord, desperate to stay alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It feels like they’re there for hours, but that can’t be possible. They complement the other perfectly, matching each other blow for blow, barely making any ground.

At one point, Angie slams Peggy back into a crumbling wall, catching her shoulder and bruising it badly. A few moments later, Peggy almost gains the upper hand by deftly kicking Angie’s feet out from under her. However, Angie manages to pull Peggy down with her somehow, and uses the last of her strength to push Peggy backwards, forcing her over.

Peggy’s back hits the floor, her head striking the cold concrete with sickening force.

The blood rings in Peggy’s ears and in the time it takes for her head to stop swimming, Angie has pinned her down.

Angie fumbles for a weapon, eventually withdrawing a knife from her belt and gripping it so tightly her knuckles go white. Her eyes track to a spot on Peggy’s throat, and Peggy knows she’s calculating, going in for a quick kill.

Angie raises the knife up, preparing to drive it downwards, when suddenly her gaze tracks to Peggy’s eyes. There’s a strange expression on Angie’s face, as though she’s just realised that something is amiss.

“You’re not fighting back,” she says a moment later, her voice soft – far too soft for someone who’s holding a shining blade up above their shoulder.

Shaking her head, Peggy does the best exasperated shrug she can manage with a bruised shoulder and enemy agent pinning her to the ground, knowing that she’s probably made herself look like an idiot in the process.

 _‘That’s the least of my problems’_ she tells herself and suddenly, with that thought, all the fight drains out of her. She realises just how tired she is. She’s more tired than she’s ever felt in her life, and she thinks that doesn’t really care about anything anymore. She’d let Angie Martinelli get under her skin, it was hardly surprising that she was paying the price for such foolishness now.

“What do you want from me?” There’s a bite to Peggy’s tone, but it’s the closest she gets to any real anger.

Angie’s lips part slightly, her jaw going slack, and she stares down at Peggy’s face, completely motionless.

“You’ve got your orders Martinelli,” Peggy spits, knowing as she does so that it’s fruitless to throw blame around. Peggy had been given her orders too, after all. This situation was both of their faults. Or maybe neither was to blame. Somewhere along the way, Peggy had lost her grasp on what any of this really meant.

She waits for Angie to accuse her of something, _anything_ , but Angie remains silent, her expression unchanged.

So, Peggy continues. “I suggest you follow those orders, because I’m not going to fight you anymore.”

She can’t even be sure if this is an attempt at a bluff. Part of her wants to think that this is her fighting for survival, but the rest of her isn’t quite so sure.

Bluff or not, an expression of sudden, intense anger passes over Angie’s face and it’s the most dangerous Peggy has ever seen her look, even after what has just passed between them. In a swift motion Angie drives the knife down, and Peggy can’t help but slam her eyes shut, not sure she wants her last memory to be one of spraying blood.

The pain she encounters a second later is not the one she expects. A high, sharp sound cracks inside her right ear and, startled, she finds that Angie has struck the knife against the concrete floor where it now lies, bent and battered.

Above her, Angie twists her body away and it takes a moment of Angie being curled in on herself for Peggy to realise that she is shaking, her breath coming in something close to dry sobs.

Ignoring the dart of pain in her shoulder, Peggy tentatively props herself up on her elbows.

“Angie?” Peggy reaches a cautious hand out to Angie’s arm, and feels her wilt at the touch.

They both feel the air around them change, and it’s clear the fight is over. There was never going to be a winner anyway, no matter the outcome.

“I hate this,” Angie declares through gritted teeth. “I _hate_ it.”

“Angie? I d– ”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. _You_ weren’t supposed to happen to me.” Angie waves a hand between them in a chaotic gesture. “What the hell am I supposed to do with all of this?” 

Reaching out to lay a palm against Angie’s cheek, Peggy whispers, “whatever you want to do.”

Angie’s head jerks up, and her eyes meet with Peggy’s. She tries to speak more than once, her mouth moving every time, but words seem to fail her. Coupled with her fast, shallow breaths, she resembles a fish caught in netting.

Then she bends down and suddenly she’s kissing Peggy, rough and firm and full of frustration.

Acting completely on instinct, Peggy meets her just as forcefully.

The kiss feels like the end of the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peggy leaves through the front entrance and waits in her car.

Coming down the alley from the opposite direction, Angie walks with purpose, slipping into the car as though she belongs there.

“Right out of your dreams and into your car, eh Peg?” Angie jokes, wiggling her eyebrows up and down, nothing of the violence and anger from before left within her.

Peggy can’t quite bite back a smile as she twists the key in the ignition. “You’re terrible.”

They’re not thinking about this, because if they do they’ll realise how stupid they're being. They’ll realise that this doesn’t have a happy ending, that one of them is supposed to be dead.

Peggy pulls the car out of the alley and turns left, heading for home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They lay together in Peggy’s bed afterwards, a tangle of sweaty limbs.

“You know English, I don’t know why you’d ever choose a life like this,” Angie muses aloud, her words blending into a long sigh, half-troubled, half-contented.

“Like what?” Peggy feels almost too relaxed to speak, and forming words feels like an impossible effort.

“Life as a spy. All the secrecy, the complications.”

The hand Peggy had been tracing through Angie’s hair suddenly goes still.

“You didn’t choose it?”

Angie laughs to herself, a cold sound completely empty of any genuine amusement.

“I guess I did, if you can call it a choice.”

“What do you mean?”

Beside her, Angie takes a deep breath, steeling herself.

“My brother, he got mixed up in some stuff. He wasn’t a bad person, honest he wasn’t. But he was doing jobs – illegal jobs, mostly stealing – for people he didn’t really know,” Angie doesn’t look at Peggy as she speaks, directing her story up at the ceiling instead.

“One of his employers had him do something that pissed Leviathan off. Bad. He asked me to help, said he wouldn’t even mention it if he wasn’t desperate. But when I tried to help, they found me. I woke up, handcuffed to a table in a windowless room, two huge guys standing over me.” Angie swallows loudly, and doesn’t speak again for a while. Just as Peggy begins to wonder if she should prompt her to continue, Angie begins again.

“They told me I could train with Leviathan and work to pay off my brother’s debt. Obviously this would incriminate me, which was handy for them since it stopped me going to the police. It was either that or, as they put it, a long swim in the Hudson with a hole in skull. If you catch my drift.”

Peggy did catch her drift, feeling rather as though her heart had sunk into her stomach.

“And…what happened to your brother?”

Angie gives a sad smile and her voice catches in her throat, her words wet with tears she quickly blinks away. “Wish I knew.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(It takes Peggy about fifteen minutes from that moment to work out that Angie _really_ doesn’t want to live this life anymore, even as Angie makes the same discovery about Peggy.

They see in each other what they had not wanted to see in themselves.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They both wake up in a slight panic, taking a moment to remember where they were and how they got there.

Angie shoots up in bed when she realises that she forgot to call in the night before.

“My bosses are gonna kill me when they realise. Like, literally kill me.” For the first time, she starts to feel fear squeeze at her stomach, starts to realise how ridiculous this situation is. Leviathan isn’t going to find out she fell for her target and just welcome her back with open arms. She’s been stupid to think all this time that things would just ‘work themselves out’. The feelings hadn’t gone away, and she was going to pay the price for that.

“Dooley might just resist killing me, but I’m certainly going to get the sack,” Peggy half-jokes, before adding, “we’re both doomed. Might as well just do a runner together instead.”

Angie freezes, half in her t-shirt.

“Peg, you’re a genius.”

“Angie…I wasn’t – I was kidding, we can’t do that.”

“Can’t we?”

“No, we can’t!” Peggy cries incredulously, finding herself staring across at Angie as though she’s suddenly sprouted an extra arm.

“Really?” Angie finishes wriggling into her shirt before arching her brow at Peggy. A dare. “Do you _want_ to do it?”

“Are you seriously asking me this question? Are you seriously asking me to elope?”

Slowly, Angie moves back to the bed, leaning over towards Peggy.

“That’s _exactly_ what I’m asking you. Do you want to run away with me?” She punctuates the questions by moving slightly closer to Peggy each time. “We could move to a different state, a different country even.” By the time she’s finished speaking, she’s close enough to kiss Peggy and so she does. When she draws back, Angie’s face is alight, her eyes dancing and making her look younger – and more alive – than Peggy had ever seen her. 

“Angie I – ”

“ _Peggy_. Do you want to or not?”

Peggy thinks about it for all of eighteen seconds.

“Yes. Yes I do.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If they’re going to do this, they have to act quickly. If they don’t report to their bosses soon, they’ll come looking for them.

They’re both spies – paranoid thanks to their environment – so they both have spare passports and bankcards hidden away, ones that even their bosses don’t know about. 

There’s not much to pack away as neither of them own many material items of any real sentimental value.

They’re killing time and finalising plans when Angie hits upon an idea.

“You know, our bosses were so keen to take each other out, it’s almost a shame they won’t get the chance.”

“What are you thinking?”

In the end, it's not that hard a decision to double-cross their bosses.

Angie phones Dooley from Peggy’s phone, offering a hostage deal for Peggy’s life. She tells him a place, a time, and hangs up.

Peggy contacts Angie’s boss, and offers the same deal.

It’s likely that neither organisation values their agents’ lives enough to go, but a possible clash between the SSR and Leviathan might buy Peggy and Angie a few day’s head-start.  It may even take one of the organisations out of the picture completely.

“I’m hoping for Leviathan,” Angie says darkly.

Peggy thinks guiltily of Sousa. Of Ray Krzeminski’s wife. And his girlfriend. And his other girlfriend.

“Me too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(They can’t use Peggy’s car, because the SSR knows her license plate so they go to a used car lot, and while Peggy distracts the salesman (“ _you’re the one who likes guys Peggy, you can do the flirting_ ”), Angie steals some keys from the backroom, throws their bags into a nondescript silver Corsa, and drives away.

By the time the salesman gets back from calling the police, Peggy is nowhere to be found.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peggy won’t let them leave the city until they’ve done one final thing. She takes over driving the car, Angie bouncing her knee nervously in the passenger seat.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” Peggy observes, and Angie stills suddenly.

“Well I’ll be happy once we get out the city is all.” Her voice is strained. “What are we doing?”

“You’ll see.”

Peggy pulls up eventually at a secluded riverside spot, devoid of security cameras or prying eyes. She kills the engine, urging Angie to follow her outside.

When they’re right at the edge of the riverbank, Peggy pulls her cell phone from her pocket and holds it out in front of her.

“They can use these to track us,” she says, even though she’s well aware that Angie knows this.

Realisation dawns on Angie’s face and she follows Peggy’s lead, dangling her own phone over the river.

“A long swim in the Hudson,” she murmurs to herself, her smile half-sad.

Peggy joins their free hands.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

They watch the phones sink slowly out of sight and once they’ve disappeared, Peggy pulls Angie to her, just because she can.

Leaning in slowly, she kisses her softly. Just because she can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’re four hours out of the city when their sense of panic shifts into something closer to relief.

They don’t speak much, Angie flicking through the radio stations every time a song finishes.

The sun begins to set and suddenly, so suddenly Peggy almost starts, Angie begins laughing.

It's only small chuckle at first, but then it grows. Angie laughs like she can’t stop. Like she doesn’t ever want to stop.

Peggy wants to ask if Angie’s okay, but she already knows the answer. ( _I am now_ ). And besides, Peggy’s smile is too wide for the words to slip through. Her eyes dart between Angie and the road, and she watches as Angie winds the window down, sticking her head out slightly to watch the tarmac stretch out in front of them.

There’s nothing in their way but an empty grey road which creeps outwards to the pale blue sky on the horizon. The only thing that matters in that moment is Angie, her hair dancing in the wind.

Peggy thinks it might be most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

The wind is strong and cold, whipping through the entire car and Peggy thinks it really ought to drown out the sounds of Angie’s laughter, but she can still hear it somehow.

It takes her a little while longer to realise that it’s not Angie she can hear but herself, as she laughs along like she’s finally in on a joke she’s never understood before.

She coaxes the car to a faster speed, the howling of the wind growing, like a wolfpack in the distance.

Peggy’s full to bursting as they coast along, a feeling of pure emotion swelling up inside of her. It’s like nothing she's felt before, not in this way and certainly not so intensely. It feels like pure, uninhibited euphoria. It feels like free-falling.

It feels like freedom. 

**Author's Note:**

> a corresponding photoset for this fic can be found [here](http://angiemartinnelli.tumblr.com/post/111606490858/) on my tumblr for anyone who likes that sort of thing.


End file.
